What is the Difference Between the Image and the Likeness of God

Genesis 1:26 / And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:

God made us in His Image according to His Likeness?

Because (Image) emphasizes man’s close similarity to
God,
while (Likeness) stresses that this similarity is not
exact.

God is (Spirit) and Man who is Human (Flesh, Blood & Spirit) can
embody
some of the same attributes of God (Communication,
Reason,
Intellect, Will, Emotion, Felling).

In fact before man fell, in the moral sense, he was (Like,
But Not) God because he
was good and sinless. The
Image of
God is not a reference to
God’s physical appearance,
but it
refers to His Person-hood
or Self-conscious Being concept.

Man was created in a natural
and moral likeness to God. When
man
sinned, he lost the moral
likeness, which was his sinless-
ness.
But at the same time, he
still retains the natural likeness
of
intellect, emotions, and will
Like God.

The moral likeness is
presently being formed
(Reformed) in
every believer who allows
God’s Spirit to conform
him to the
(Imageof God’s Son) by His Spirit.